Rain Hood

[Fisty McB]

Subscribing to that. Tested by spraying a dry lnb = instant drop in levels.
Hood mandatory here for any marginal signal (28E). For strong sats it's only the seasonal matter of avoiding snow build-up.

Snow is not usually a big problem here. Only maybe once or twice a winter on average though it can vary (2009/10 and 2010/11 were exceptions) with the main problem being snow accumulating on the support bar just in front of the LNB. Knocking this off usually restores reception unless there's large accumulations on the dish face after a blizzard. Nearly all snow here is of the "wet" variety, powered snow is rare here as it's normally not cold enough and too humid, even though I'm some 60km in from the sea.

Rain and wind are much more common year round. The latter the main culprit for knocking dishes out of alignment, but rain isn't usually a big problem for the Astra satellites at 28.2 and 19.2 east. Hot Bird is a bit weaker though - over the years I've seen quite a few "Cyfra+" dishes spring up locally and they appear to be quite small, equivalent of 60cm if not smaller. Not much margin for rain on those dishes here. My own measurements work out at 60-70cm being a minimum with 80cm required for reliable DVB-S2 8PSK reception from Hot Bird here. Might explain why excollier (who isn't far from myself) sees quite a few rain hoods on dishes aimed for reception of Eastern European channels.

 

[Fisty McB]

Dragging up this old thread, I happened to spot in my local 'hood the first time I've ever seen an LNB rain hood added to a Sky dish! Must have just been added a few days ago.



Now this Sky Zone 1 dish I know has been up for several years at this residence. A seemingly odd choice considering this is a "Zone 2" Sky dish area. In fact it was installed some time around 2014, a good few months before Eutelsat 28A was retired which made me think that reception of transmissions from that bird on that dish must have been marginal at best even in dry weather.

Now with the three Astra 2E/2F/2G birds now broadcasting everything at that orbital position, the higher power they deliver, even for the Astra 2G Pan-Euro beam which is the "weakest" here to receive, you could probably get away with a Zone 1 dish installation these days - I'm receiving 28 east on an fixed offset (non-Sky) 45cm dish at my earth station which even in normally "heavy" rain doesn't cause channels to break up and disappear, including those on the 2G Euro beam (though this did involve careful matching of the LNB in use, oddly an Opticum narrow-neck LNB that would usually be a mediocre performer delivered the best results).

On this basis, as long as the dish is properly aligned then the Zone 1 dish here should be fine outside of torrential downpours but clearly the people in the property aren't getting reliable reception in wet weather. But why this home made hood should only appear on this dish some two and a half years after Eutelsat 28A was retired from this position is a bit of a mystery. Probably a cheap attempt to reduce wet weather affecting reception before the only option then being to take the dish down and fit a Zone 2 instead?

Looking at the coax connections to the LNB, maybe water ingress is causing signal loss, thus a new roll of twin WF65/WF100 might be what's really required with the F-connectors then properly waterproofed.

 

[Channel Hopper]

Dragging up this old thread, I happened to spot in my local 'hood the first time I've ever seen an LNB rain hood added to a Sky dish! Must have just been added a few days ago.

View attachment 114893

Now this Sky Zone 1 dish I know has been up for several years at this residence. A seemingly odd choice considering this is a "Zone 2" Sky dish area. In fact it was installed some time around 2014, a good few months before Eutelsat 28A was retired which made me think that reception of transmissions from that bird on that dish must have been marginal at best even in dry weather.

Now with the three Astra 2E/2F/2G birds now broadcasting everything at that orbital position, the higher power they deliver, even for the Astra 2G Pan-Euro beam which is the "weakest" here to receive, you could probably get away with a Zone 1 dish installation these days - I'm receiving 28 east on an fixed offset (non-Sky) 45cm dish at my earth station which even in normally "heavy" rain doesn't cause channels to break up and disappear, including those on the 2G Euro beam (though this did involve careful matching of the LNB in use, oddly an Opticum narrow-neck LNB that would usually be a mediocre performer delivered the best results).

On this basis, as long as the dish is properly aligned then the Zone 1 dish here should be fine outside of torrential downpours but clearly the people in the property aren't getting reliable reception in wet weather. But why this home made hood should only appear on this dish some two and a half years after Eutelsat 28A was retired from this position is a bit of a mystery. Probably a cheap attempt to reduce wet weather affecting reception before the only option then being to take the dish down and fit a Zone 2 instead?

Looking at the coax connections to the LNB, maybe water ingress is causing signal loss, thus a new roll of twin WF65/WF100 might be what's really required with the F-connectors then properly waterproofed.

View attachment 114894

View attachment 114895